Max Mara

The word minimal is cropping up more and more this season. For MaxMara, it started with something as lean and precise as the new-wave music with which Frederic Sanchez soundtracked the show, and it extended to a (rather too) coolly analytical parade of familiar body-con styles, with the emphasis on a monochrome palette to elongate the silhouette still further. Stretch shorts and tops all in yellow or orange or violet were immediately followed by palazzo pants in the same colors, which, voluminous though they were, were slashed to reveal the limbs below. A nude suede all-in-one and a white second-skin jumpsuit were the most extreme expressions of the collection's obsession with shape, but the way in which a cable-stitched sweater was yanked close to the body with a skinny orange belt also subtly broadcast that silhouette was everything for Spring.

It seemed like an oddly ungenerous stance for a house that is famous for its all-styles-served-here essence. The emphasis on the body meant flesh was bared in a backless apron-front dress or a white sheath that reversed to barely there-ness. The bandeau paired with a khaki pencil skirt compounded the overview. Of course, a show lets a label be a little more absolutist than it is back in the showroom, and MaxMara fans may see clues to that in the nautical stripes and the summery trenchcoats that ran the gamut from white leather to polka dots.